The AP's preseason poll has been released, meaning we're one step closer to college football actually being played this fall. One thing we learned: Voters think multiple area schools -- namely Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M -- will all have strong seasons.

But while the hype trains already seem to be in motion for these schools, expectations actually could have been loftier for some of them.

On the other side of the equation, just 10 voters didn't have the Sooners in their top five, meaning a whopping 52 voters have them either No. 3, No. 4 or No. 5 on their ballots. Oklahoma's peak was No. 3 -- 12 different voters had the Sooners there.

Texas' peak was No. 4 (three different voters had the Longhorns there), while Texas A&M's highest finish was sixth (two different voters had the Aggies there). The two media personalities that had A&M in the No. 6 spot were the South Bend Tribune's Eric Hansen and ESPN's Reece Davis.

Get your pitchforks ready

The lowest anyone had the Sooners ranked was No. 8. That vote came courtesy of the Quad-City Times' Steve Batterson.

The lowest anyone had the Aggies was No. 18. Two voters -- The Gainesville Sun's Pat Dooley and the Austin American-Statesman's Kirk Bohls -- had them in that spot.

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The lowest anyone had the Longhorns was No. 22. The Tampa Bay Times' Matt Baker was that culprit.

Honorable mention

TCU didn't crack the top 25, but the Horned Frogs did receive the sixth-most voting points outside of the top 25, making them No. 31 in theory.

WTVA-Tupelo's Jim Holder is the most optimistic about TCU's chances. He had the Horned Frogs as the No. 13 team on his ballot.

Oklahoma State was the other area school to receive votes but not appear in the actual top 25. The Cowboys got three voting points -- all of which came from a 23rd-place vote from The Athletic's Matt Brown.

Scott Bell, Assistant Sports Editor. Scott is SportsDay's lead digital strategist. He also currently oversees coverage of the Morning News' college football, college basketball, Dallas Stars and golf coverage. He has been a part of the SportsDay team since 2010 and has previously led HS, Mavericks and soccer coverage. Prior to moving to Dallas, he worked at the Detroit Free Press.